ECNL vs. DA turf war has created a 'toxic environment'

[SD_Soccer]

Courageous is appropriate in my opinion @CopaMundial. The environment lends to a ton of pressure to commit for these kids. Most, if not all thier peers look at DI as the end all be all, or as a statement of the players ability. The fact is, there are many D2 schools that could play circles around many D1. But, most kids just believe in the hierarchy of D1, 2, 3 and so on. So, for your kid to bypass the perceived “Holy Grail” and choose a school that is simply a better fit, is courageous. Congrats to her. My kid did the same, BTW. Had a DI offer before her Junior year from a school that wasn’t a blip on her radar. She recieved a couple more offers this summer as well from another couple DI schools that she just wasn’t interested in. Although, she did entertain them a bit more than the previous offer. Finally, she decided on a great DII school and program that checks off most of her boxes of dream situation that she had in mind. She’s thrilled, we’re thrilled for her. We’re all thrilled to be done with the process.

My daughter is at a D3. Her coach, coaching only at the D3 level, is undefeated against D2 schools (more than 20 games played), and 6-8 against D1 schools (take away the 2 games against a Big 10 university, and he is 6-6). Point being, D1 women's soccer is not necessarily better than D2, which is not necessarily better than D3. And many of the lower end D1 soccer programs have lower end academics, as well. One of her assistant coaches won a national championship at D1 and said her team is much better than many of the D1 teams they played in their non-league games.

Choose the right university and maximize the money you can get-- and focus less on what division they play (random university with a direction in its name is not likely to help get you a great job coming out of school). The parent's desire to say their daughter got a D1 scholarship (and in some cases, they didn't even get money, just offered to walk-on-- but the parent often won't share those details) sometimes runs against their daughter having the best long-term impact on their life (i.e., getting a good job outside of soccer) and enjoyment on the field (if you are one of the last players on the team, you are not likely to get much, if any, time on the field). We have 100% of school costs covered and most other expenses (dorm, food) covered by her merit award. And she is at a really good university and will be a strong contributor her freshman year on the field. That is a good outcome.

 

[oh canada]

My daughter is at a D3. Her coach, coaching only at the D3 level, is undefeated against D2 schools (more than 20 games played), and 6-8 against D1 schools (take away the 2 games against a Big 10 university, and he is 6-6). Point being, D1 women's soccer is not necessarily better than D2, which is not necessarily better than D3. And many of the lower end D1 soccer programs have lower end academics, as well. One of her assistant coaches won a national championship at D1 and said her team is much better than many of the D1 teams they played in their non-league games.

Choose the right university and maximize the money you can get-- and focus less on what division they play (random university with a direction in its name is not likely to help get you a great job coming out of school). The parent's desire to say their daughter got a D1 scholarship (and in some cases, they didn't even get money, just offered to walk-on-- but the parent often won't share those details) sometimes runs against their daughter having the best long-term impact on their life (i.e., getting a good job outside of soccer) and enjoyment on the field (if you are one of the last players on the team, you are not likely to get much, if any, time on the field). We have 100% of school costs covered and most other expenses (dorm, food) covered by her merit award. And she is at a really good university and will be a strong contributor her freshman year on the field. That is a good outcome.

and your daughter is also learning the valuable lesson of not following the crowd, or "taking the road less traveled" as Robert Frost put it.

 

[Dubs]

Did anyone happen to see the ICC match last night between NC Courage and Lyon? Excellent match!

 

[timbuck]

As long as your job is in Southern California. Very few people outside of So Cal have heard of Claremont-McKenna.

I've gotten a few "Disagrees" for this one. I'm not a native Californian, but I've been here for over 20 years. I had never heard about Claremont McKenna until a few years ago (Friend of ours played volleyball there). I had no idea that is was such a highly regarded academic school. Maybe those that hire econ, finance or political science majors view it as a top school to recruit from. I've worked with/interacted with people from many of the Ivys, Stanford, etc. Aside from our friend that was a volleyball player, I don't think I've ever met anyone else who has gone there. (Maybe I need to start hanging out with smarter people. All of these idiots from Eastern-Northwest State University are dragging me down)

I did a little googling to find out some more info on Claremont McKenna. This is fall 2018 data:
Total Undergrad Students: 1,318
Nor Cal Residents: 190
Central Cal Residents: 12
Southern Cal Residents: 310
Total CA: 512
They do have students from 49 total states.
States that have more than 20 students:
Washington: 73
New York: 66
Texas: 53
Illinois: 49
Oregon: 32
Arizona: 28
Massachusetts: 27
Connecticut: 23
New Jersey: 23
Colorado: 22

They also have 223 students from 43 foreign countries:
China: 65
India: 37
Korea: 13
Hong Kong: 10
UK: 10
Canada: 6
Any others are 5 or less.

 

[soccerobserver]

As long as your job is in Southern California. Very few people outside of So Cal have heard of Claremont-McKenna.

@timbuck Technically you are correct that “few” know CMC by name...however the “few” that do are merely the employers in the highest paying fields in finance like investment banks, private equity firms, hedge funds, elite management consulting firms etc...then there are the top graduate schools that also place a high weight on a degree from Claremont, Pomona, Harvey Mudd and the other schools in their consortium...I think Pomona rejects something like 91% of the kids who apply there...soccer is a great way to get accepted and into the feeder into those high paying industries...

 

[chiefs]

not so fast on drawing that conclusion. first off Abners Team was missing players from the championship roster for Surf Cup. Also two players on the ECNL championship Roster played on the DA squad, Tad's team, for Surf Cup. And scored their goals. Abner was also trying out new positioning and some new additions to the roster as well. so this is a false conclusion actually.

Wrong; two players from 03 ECNl team didn’t play for DA team in this game...DA team had 4 new players playing in this game; 1 from Abner's team, 2 from DA Surf, and the goalie was I believe an 06 player. The game was a white wash, as 06 goalie hardly even saw the ball. If not for the tremendous play by the ECNL goalie, game could have been 5 or 6 nothing. It’s easy to forget the 03 DA team last year was playing up at the 02 level last year. With the additions and dropping down to their age group, DA did show well by dominating the very best of ECNL.

 

[MarkM]

Since neither league is 'better' than the other (ECNL or DA), there is no need to make them A and B. The coaches do their job. Players play for the league and coach they choose.

How is that so? Two comparable teams. One team finishes first in the country in their league. The other team finishes about 26th in the country in their league. I'm not sure how anyone can plausibly say that the competition is not strikingly different in the two leagues.

And the Blues ECNL team was not very good before Rogers brought his team over from Strikers. Let's not pretend that the Rogers team is somehow indicative of how other Blues ECNL teams are formed.

 

[bigroyalbastard]

not so fast on drawing that conclusion. first off Abners Team was missing players from the championship roster for Surf Cup. Also two players on the ECNL championship Roster played on the DA squad, Tad's team, for Surf Cup. And scored their goals. Abner was also trying out new positioning and some new additions to the roster as well. so this is a false conclusion actually.

Just curious, why would any of the players from Abner's ECNL National Championship team want to play with Tad's team at Surf Cup instead of with their own #1 team. Sounds kinda strange to me. Or did they leave Abner's team for a "better" team?

 

[pewpew]

I’m embellishing a bit but you get the idea.

C'mon @espola ..come up with your own lines!!

I've gotten a few "Disagrees" for this one. I'm not a native Californian, but I've been here for over 20 years. I had never heard about Claremont McKenna until a few years ago. I had no idea that it was such a highly regarded academic school.

That's ok @timbuck. You had (1) "Agree". Which proves @12th_man_fan knows just as little as you.
KIDDING!!!

I just used Claremont McKenna as an example. The Claremont Colleges are a consortium of schools and are all held in high regard.

 

[G03_SD]

@timbuck Technically you are correct that “few” know CMC by name...however the “few” that do are merely the employers in the highest paying fields in finance like investment banks, private equity firms, hedge funds, elite management consulting firms etc...then there are the top graduate schools that also place a high weight on a degree from Claremont, Pomona, Harvey Mudd and the other schools in their consortium...I think Pomona rejects something like 91% of the kids who apply there...soccer is a great way to get accepted and into the feeder into those high paying industries...

I was told during daughter's recruiting process that with CMC and CalTech you have to make it through admission process first and that soccer doesn't give you any priority.

 

[soccerobserver]

I was told during daughter's recruiting process that with CMC and CalTech you have to make it through admission process first and that soccer doesn't give you any priority.

In most D3's the coach has to run the applicant by the admissions committee and the applicant must meet the same admissions criteria that all the non athletic recruits have to meet.Our experience was with Pomona and the coach definitely has a voice in getting her soccer recruits from the qualified pool of applicants and into the admitted pool of applicants. In contrast, and in the case of MIT for example the coaches say they have no ability to influence the admissions process even if the soccer applicant greatly exceed the admissions criteria. CalTech recently revived their soccer program so I am not familiar with their process.

 

[Dos Equis]

In most D3's the coach has to run the applicant by the admissions committee and the applicant must meet the same admissions criteria that all the non athletic recruits have to meet.Our experience was with Pomona and the coach definitely has a voice in getting her soccer recruits from the qualified pool of applicants and into the admitted pool of applicants. In contrast, and in the case of MIT for example the coaches say they have no ability to influence the admissions process even if the soccer applicant greatly exceed the admissions criteria. CalTech recently revived their soccer program so I am not familiar with their process.

Most NESCAC schools (Williams, Amherst, Hamilton, Trinity, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Middlebury, Tufts), give their coaches a number of "golden tickets" for athletic recruits who meet minimum, but quite high, academic standards. The UAA is another top D3 academic conference (NYU, Carnegie Mellon, Brandeis, Emory, UChicago, Case Western, Wash St. Louis) whose members mostly follow similar recruiting policies to the NESCAC.

A lot depends on the culture of the school, the nature of the alumni base (often based on endowment and level of post-graduation alumni involvement), and how much emphasis they historically put on athletics. So while MIT is less inclined to help recruited athletes, at the other end of the scale Johns Hopkins acts more like a D1 school in terms of the disparity between the test score and GPA requirements for athletes versus the rest of the class (and not just for their D1 Lacrosse program). I think the vast majority of D3 schools still have recruiting policies/programs/quotas, but few have academic exceptions for these athletes.

 

[Dummy]

I was told during daughter's recruiting process that with CMC and CalTech you have to make it through admission process first and that soccer doesn't give you any priority.

There is no place to hide academically at Cal Tech or MIT so the soccer players need to be students that play soccer or they won’t last long at the school.

MIT believes that it can make three “perfect classes” from the applications that it receives every year. That doesn’t mean all perfect scores and GPAs. It means that it can fulfill its goals for the incoming class three times over.

To give you a sense of the numbers, here is what MIT has posted for the most recent admission process.

https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats/

Cal Tech is similar. Both schools require subject tests.

If a player can qualify academically, soccer can make the difference in admission because coaches indicate their preferences to the admissions office. This preference is taken into account after the player is determined to be qualified for admission. If a player has the right numbers and experiences, she may even be admitted irrespective of soccer. If not, it does not matter how wonderful the player is at soccer because it serves nobody’s interest in either the short or long term to have a player struggle (and possibly fail) academically.

 

[LASTMAN14]

Most NESCAC schools (Williams, Amherst, Hamilton, Trinity, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Middlebury, Tufts), give their coaches a number of "golden tickets" for athletic recruits who meet minimum, but quite high, academic standards. The UAA is another top D3 academic conference (NYU, Carnegie Mellon, Brandeis, Emory, UChicago, Case Western, Wash St. Louis) whose members mostly follow similar recruiting policies to the NESCAC.

A lot depends on the culture of the school, the nature of the alumni base (often based on endowment and level of post-graduation alumni involvement), and how much emphasis they historically put on athletics. So while MIT is less inclined to help recruited athletes, at the other end of the scale Johns Hopkins acts more like a D1 school in terms of the disparity between the test score and GPA requirements for athletes versus the rest of the class (and not just for their D1 Lacrosse program). I think the vast majority of D3 schools still have recruiting policies/programs/quotas, but few have academic exceptions for these athletes.

Several friends of mine played at Tufts(1) and Emory(3). All met academic requirements and could have been accepted on those merits alone.

 

[Dummy]

I was told during daughter's recruiting process that with CMC and CalTech you have to make it through admission process first and that soccer doesn't give you any priority.

It is important to remember that CMC has two soccer programs. CMS and PP are as different as the colleges that are combined into teams. For example, Harvey Mudd and Scripps are VERY different schools with VERY different admission processes. Players from both play on a team with players enrolled at Claremont College. Same for Pomona and Pitzer.

 

[SD_Soccer]

Most NESCAC schools (Williams, Amherst, Hamilton, Trinity, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Middlebury, Tufts), give their coaches a number of "golden tickets" for athletic recruits who meet minimum, but quite high, academic standards. The UAA is another top D3 academic conference (NYU, Carnegie Mellon, Brandeis, Emory, UChicago, Case Western, Wash St. Louis) whose members mostly follow similar recruiting policies to the NESCAC.

A lot depends on the culture of the school, the nature of the alumni base (often based on endowment and level of post-graduation alumni involvement), and how much emphasis they historically put on athletics. So while MIT is less inclined to help recruited athletes, at the other end of the scale Johns Hopkins acts more like a D1 school in terms of the disparity between the test score and GPA requirements for athletes versus the rest of the class (and not just for their D1 Lacrosse program). I think the vast majority of D3 schools still have recruiting policies/programs/quotas, but few have academic exceptions for these athletes.

My daughter is at a strong academic D3, and her coach played no role in admission. In fact, he didn’t want them to mention soccer at all. They got in (and money) on merit alone. He helped guide the resume, essays, etc., but he had no role with the admissions office. My daughter was recruited by Cal Tech, Vassar and several other schools of the top academic D3’s, as well. She is smarter than me and would have gotten into them if she chose them (she made her decision in Junior year). But I do know some schools let the coach have some sway in admissions.

 

[Not_that_Serious]

@timbuck Technically you are correct that “few” know CMC by name...however the “few” that do are merely the employers in the highest paying fields in finance like investment banks, private equity firms, hedge funds, elite management consulting firms etc...then there are the top graduate schools that also place a high weight on a degree from Claremont, Pomona, Harvey Mudd and the other schools in their consortium...I think Pomona rejects something like 91% of the kids who apply there...soccer is a great way to get accepted and into the feeder into those high paying industries...

Those who hire folks at highest levels know Pomona, Scripps, "Claremont", Harvey Mudd, Pitzer and Keck Graduate School. Had friends attend the various Claremont Schools - all pretty much geniuses. If any of those schools wanted to give my kids a scholarship due to their athletic abilities, even if they were recruiting to play Roller Hockey or Field Hockey or Ultimate Frisbee - they would be playing whatever the hell the schools wanted them to play. The schools are that solid. Harvey Mudd often out ranks other engineering schools - but most folks only know MIT or Cal Tech. Hell more people know the Cal Poly schools more.

 

[espola]

Those who hire folks at highest levels know Pomona, Scripps, "Claremont", Harvey Mudd, Pitzer and Keck Graduate School. Had friends attend the various Claremont Schools - all pretty much geniuses. If any of those schools wanted to give my kids a scholarship due to their athletic abilities, even if they were recruiting to play Roller Hockey or Field Hockey or Ultimate Frisbee - they would be playing whatever the hell the schools wanted them to play. The schools are that solid. Harvey Mudd often out ranks other engineering schools - but most folks only know MIT or Cal Tech. Hell more people know the Cal Poly schools more.

One reason few people know about Harvey Mudd is that so few people graduate from there. Their total enrollment is smaller than Cal Poly Pomona's Freshman class.

 

[Desert Hound]

Those who hire folks at highest levels know Pomona, Scripps, "Claremont", Harvey Mudd, Pitzer and Keck Graduate School. Had friends attend the various Claremont Schools - all pretty much geniuses. If any of those schools wanted to give my kids a scholarship due to their athletic abilities, even if they were recruiting to play Roller Hockey or Field Hockey or Ultimate Frisbee - they would be playing whatever the hell the schools wanted them to play. The schools are that solid. Harvey Mudd often out ranks other engineering schools - but most folks only know MIT or Cal Tech. Hell more people know the Cal Poly schools more.

Those in the know go the the "Harvard of the West" aka Arizona State.

 

[Not_that_Serious]

One reason few people know about Harvey Mudd is that so few people graduate from there. Their total enrollment is smaller than Cal Poly Pomona's Freshman class.

I use to go over to the various Claremont campuses back when I was in college, usually chasing a friend's roommate's skirt around, and the very small close knit atmosphere was great. Not everyone likes that style of campus when they are young - bigger, louder = more fun! Claremont is a nice quiet town, something the young ones find boring.